An Android's Superpower
by ian25rebel
Summary: The simplest thing changes a world of possibilities. A point that disrupts the proper flow of time into a new path. Follow our lovable robot as she survives a changing world. Where monsters in human skin roam and the darkness is given form.
1. Prologue

**Believe or not, it was looking at the RWBY tropes page that I got the idea for how Penny could legitimately survive and change things. We are picking up at the battle where she is supposed to die. For all Penny fans, fingers crossed that in season 6 she lives. Robots are harder to kill than humans, AIs less so.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY**

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It was another wonderful day in the Vytal Festival that Penny experienced. Minus the incident with Subject: Yang and Subject: Mercury altercation the previous day. Today, she was picked to fight Subject:Pyrrha. Penny decided to be cautious. She read the champion's files and saw that her Semblance was Polarity. Something that she should be wary about.

Why you ask, you see Penny isn't normal. She was never normal. This girl wasn't born in a hospital, rather she was built in a science lab. Penny is an android or to be specific, a Gynoid. A machine meant to emulate a human and become a weapon.

The world Penny Polendina was built in wasn't exactly safe. Remnant had shadowy monsters called the Grimm, seemingly born with the sole purpose of destroying both man and faunuskind. Many of them bearing the shape of humanity's primal fears.

To combat them, the world itself provided dust. A natural material that allowed people to wield nature's wrath against the darkness. They come in the form of ores or crystals. To the point that there was an actual tree that slowly grew powerful dust. No one knew where it truly came from but didn't question it. This material powered all of Remnant's machines and served as ammunition for their weapons.

Robots have small dust powered generators that require the material every week. Many of these robots were built to combat the Grimm. Penny was the odd one out of all of them. She relied on dust as a supplementary power source or backup generator. Rather, she ran on Aura.

Aura is the materialization of the soul in living things, even animals. Grimm don't have souls therefore they don't have Aura. Robots should be the same except someone forgot to tell Dr. Polendina, head of the R&D Division that when he built Penny. He managed to create an aura generator that gave life to his daughter.

After breaking a fundamental law of the world, he presented his daughter who was just an upper torso without arms to his superiors in the Atlesian military. With his breakthrough, the Kingdom of Atlas gave enough resources and support to the man to improve Penny and recreate the phenomenon. He was somewhat successful in that regard, making a prototype human sized shield generator that zaps any Grimm getting close to it.

Dr Polendina had the best of the best to 'teach' his daughter to fight. By teach we mean upload information to her until she became fully sentient. Something Aura has the power to give. When his daughter dif became 100% sentient it caused quite a shock amongst the higher echelons of the military.

Paranoid bastards wanted to destroy her in case she wanted to destroy the world. Thankfully, none of those were in a high position. Besides, only the Grimm and humanity get to obliterate the world. Not atlesian robots, that would be insulting to hunters and criminals everywhere.

Penny thought of many things as she headed to the arena to fight. How to fight Pyrrha, ways to counter and not to die. There was a bit of emphasis on the last one. She only lived for 3 years, she wants to do what no other android has done. Live out a life.

There were alerts in her processor minutes later just seconds before Pyrrha should sever her limbs with her own weapons. Penny was locked in place as her opponent's semblance was put on overdrive. Her body was wrapped in pain as she thought of ways to get out of her situation alive. Her thoughts turned to the word semblance.

Aura is the materialization of the soul. Those that have Aura can have a semblance. Penny has aura, therefore she has a semblance. The gynoid with a heart attack that should be implausible called upon her aura in a last resort to not die. In a second just before her probable death, she unleashed her newfound power.

And then the sky fell… Penny felt free.

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 **I had a bit of fun writing this. Something about logic is just satisfying when it works. I'll let you guess just what Penny's (hopefully canon) semblance actually does. If you want more, let me hear it and I'll update it.**

 **Read, Review and Follow if I'm lucky.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Let's get this story started. For a quick recap, we start at the point in PvP where Penny is supposed to die.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY**

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Chapter 1: PvP Disrupted

Pyrrha suddenly jerked to the ground. Her sudden movement combined with the quake in the stadium cancelled her semblance. People panicked and screamed in shock quite a bit as the entirety of the Amity Coliseum shook. It only lasted for a few moments before it stopped.

"Apologies!" A voice sounded from the center of the arena where Pyrrha is. Penny looked somewhere between ashamed and relieved as she shakily stood up. "I didn't properly calculate the strength of my semblance." She didn't sound as cheerful though. The hidden robot looked at the champion. "Please try not to do that again."

The announcer's box made a short screech as the speakers came to life. Camera's flicked a bit. They showed a laughing Professor Port and a Doctor Oobleck fixing his clothes while furiously typing in a scroll. Somewhere in Beacon, Glynda sighed in frustration.

"It seems that Penny managed to use her semblance." A gleeful Port spoke into the microphone. "A Gravity based one if I'm not mistaken. Why, this reminds me of the time when I went up against those-"

Oobleck being the lifesaver he is wrestled the amplifier out of his colleague's hands. "Well seeing what happen earlier as a competitor managed to narrowly avoid dismemberment. It's a question whether both of our fighters will agree to fight or not" eyes turned to the fighters in question. All wanting to know the outcome.

Pyrrha righted herself and took a step back, afraid of the crowd's reaction to a near death scenario. Terrified by the potential outcome. Her competitive side however wanted to keep going, now knowing the limits. Competition and pride won in the end and overrode common sense. She gripped her weapon as she stared defiantly at the robot.

Penny identified the look on her opponent's face saying that she still wants to fight. She rather than forfeiting for obvious reasons took one of the blades near her and ripped off something in the hilt. With that done, she pointed the lone weapon at the champion. All logic servers were currently overrun by the power she felt when activating her semblance.

"Then it's settled!" Port was back at the microphone. "Both of them will fight until they're at half aura. We don't want a repeat of earlier. Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

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Cinder smashed the closest thing in her vicinity which was a glass cup. To add insult to injury, she set fire to the material. Her rage was somewhat justified. Everything was going according to plan easily, too easily. That should have been the first sign that something was wrong. Her plans were ruined by a well timed use of gravity. The android that should die was clearly going against it's supposed programming.

She thought of hers plans. Without the android's death, there won't be as much Grimm distracting the hunters in the area. No matter, she could still salvage them. There was always the reckless route which unfortunately for Cinder became viable. All she had to do was be patient and strike at the right time. Too bad her patience is running short.

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In a lab located in Atlas, Dr. Polendina was both beset by joy and worry. Both emotions were in the direction of his daughter. On one hand, his theory of having an aura automatically means there is a semblance rings true. He did not design nor install any gravity generators into his own daughter, only the lasers. On the other, there was someone who knew about the true nature of his child and tried to take advantage of it.

The man shook his head, he had calls to make if his suspicions ran true.

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A ringing signified the battle to begin once again. Two females took battle stances the moment they heard the sound. Both leered at each other waiting for someone to break the tension.

Pyrrha moved first. She took Milo in it's lance form and threw it at Penny like a javelin. The weapon moved quite fast but it suddenly flew into the ground with a green aura surrounding it. The gynoid looked at the weapon before putting the one sword behind her and sprinted forward.

In a move that surprised the audience, Pyrrha moved a hand to her distant weapon and it was willed back to her. Milo was covered in a black aura and flew into its owner's hand. With weapon in hand, she transformed it into a rifle in record time and fired.

Penny thanked her father's programming as she dodged and sliced the bullets. Her inhuman reaction times attacking small targets would be feats just below impossible on Remnant. With a gravity empowered stomp, she charged forward.

The gynoid landed a strike on Pyrrha's side only to be blocked a second time by a shield. Penny was then sucker punched before she could retaliate and was suddenly flown across the field. With a boost from her semblance, she landed feet first just near the edge of the arena so she wasn't eliminated.

Port began speaking for the crowd. "It looks like our little champion decided to not hold back. Her semblance is magnetism folks, and it's the reason why many people lost to her in the past. Still doesn't explain why her opponent was launched to the other side." The man absentmindedly wondered as people watched Pyrrha with awe or jealousy.

Pyrrha herself was surprisingly fine considering the revelations she took. Being a maiden candidate, nearly killing her opponent, said opponent forcing you to reveal her semblance. The champion had thoughts of actually going on vacation. Preferable a safe private beach where she could relax with Jaune.

Her thoughts caught up to her and she blushed a red the same shade as Ruby's cloak. Unbeknownst to her, her train of thoughts actually wasted time as Penny got up and grabbed another of her discarded swords. The sound of something shattering brought Pyrrha back to her senses as she saw Penny standing in a small field of blades.

The gynoid set her weapons behind her once again and dashed forward. Penny leapt into the air spinning on her sides and swung. She was blocked by Milo in its gun form this time and was shot. It took a sizable bit of aura away. Penny proceeded to physically ram Pyrrha with her head, which astonished everyone and stunned the champion.

Before she could be pushed away again, Penny dropped the blades she carried and lifted her opponent into the air. With her gravity semblance, she brought the body down onto the floor with lots more force. Everyone winced when the slam was heard. Team Juniper had the look of loss on their face, especially Jaune.

"Penny Polendina of Team COPR wins the match!" Oobleck spoke with vigor into the microphone to which people began to cheer. Pyrrha winced at the volume and looked at the side. She saw her aura meter at 27% percent. Enough to get by for the day. She looked at Penny and smiled a little as she was pulled from her position.

"You're a great fighter Pyrrha, do you want a rematch someday? I hear the Beacon arena would suffice." The gynoid looked content and cheerful in general when not focused on something. Everything felt right with the world. How were they wrong.

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30 minutes later, everything was going to hell. The Grimm were arriving in droves as they attacked civilians and hunters left and right. All caused by Cinder's message to the world of Remnant. Teams attending the Vytal Festival had to defend against Nevermores and Gryphons assault. Thankfully no bullheads were destroyed. Now all everyone had to do was evacuate Vale. Easier said than done. Grimm appeared out of nowhere.

A peculiar pack of Beowolves spawned on the stadium just before the hunters managed to get off. They wouldn't be a problem normally but _all_ of them were Alphas, led by an _Omega_. A pure white Beowolf covered in bone that only conventional weapons of the highest caliber and above could pierce and actually harm the beast.

"Haah! Die beast!" Peter Port yelled a battle cry as he decapitated an alpha with his blunderbuss/axe hybrid. Oobleck was behind was giving 3rd degree burns on the poor Grimm and providing cover. He even swatted one into a wall. No matter what they kept coming.

Jaune was literally holding Grimm at the doors with his shield. His aura and armor allowing him to withstand blow after blow. Ren and Nora were with him thinning out the horde. Team SSSN were assisting civilians in escaping the area. Ruby led other hunter teams against the invading darkness, taking out Nevermores and Gryphons in their wake.

Penny and Pyrrha were back to back as they took a brunt of the horde. Beowolves struck left, right and behind as they assaulted the two. Penny's Bladepack was reassembled in record time with the champion's help and targeted Grimm independently. Pyrrha slashed through a Beowolf's body with her lance and it disintegrated.

"We need to get out of the stadium." She said as she fired at several strafing Grimm. "There's too many and we aren't in the best place to be." Pyrrha bashed the back of her rifle on a Grimm, transformed Milo and slashed. "The others are occupied with the fliers but we need to rest somewhere." She threw her shield and it rebounded on several skulls before returning.

Penny focusing to control her semblance on everything around her. Thanking her robotic nature and multitasking, she exerted aura into the area. Gravity forced the Grimm around them to stumble or stay down. Those that are still up struggled to move quickly. Her temporary teammate's semblance unconsciously protected her. The gynoid scanned the immediate area and saw a clear yet unorthodox exit. Tugging on Pyrrha's arm, she pulled the girl into following her out.

The champion got the message and provided a bit of cover fire, shooting any wolves that get close. She reloaded and ran after the robot who cut down several Grimm on the way to the exit. Pyrrha spun once and destroyed several Beowolves that tried to gang up on her. Once she caught up with Penny, she immediately regretted her decision.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Pyrrha asked nervously. Scaling the wall isn't exactly safe, especially with Grimm everywhere. It's also flat with ridges periodically "How are we supposed to even get up?"

"Your semblance could theoretically be used to stick yourself on metal surfaces." The gynoid answered. "I'll be fine, you go ahead and reach the hanger." Before the champion could protest, the gynoid displayed her unnatural strength and threw her upwards. A cry of surprise emanated from her mouth and she tried to do what Penny suggested. Pyrrha heard the sound of metal connecting and saw it worked.

Penny looked up at Pyrrha scaling the wall, making use of her armor to stay on. Turning around, she saw most of the flying Grimm congregated near the center of the coliseum. Two blades emerged from her pack and lodged themselves into the ground. The rest of her weapons formed a circle and a ball of green energy formed in the middle.

The gynoid momentarily accessed the audio system to tell her warning. "Get away from the center!" She yelled as people complied and moved away from the mass of Grimm. Penny punched the ball and out came a massive beam of energy. The laser cut through the horde regardless of how strong. The Omega didn't even attack anyone one.

"Thanks Penny!" Ruby yelled over the screeches of pain as she brought her scythe down. The sound of blood curdling and a bird cawing in pain was heard. "We're almost done people, let's finish the job." A cacophony of cheers was heard followed by screams of agony from the Grimm as they were taken down.

As the kill counts rose, the monstrosities fell by the second with only a few stragglers. With the area mostly cleared of Grimm and the civilians, all Hunters turned their attention to Beacon. They recuperated a bit before racing to the hangar. The main door opened up to reveal Pyrrha on the other side with Ironwood barking orders, a number of atlesian soldiers and one large bullhead.

The teams lined up into the machine, rejuvenated and reloaded. Team JNPR had a bit of a reunion as they got in. Penny watched as the last of the competitors in the Vytal Festival enter the vehicle. She was about to the bullhead herself but was stopped by the General.

"Sir?" She asked in a questioning tone.

"You have full permission to reveal your true nature." The man said to Penny's shock. "We have a priority to the people of Remnant. I am not Ozpin where he waits and acts when necessary."

Before he could say more, a large primordial roar was heard. Further out from Mt. Glenn, the Grimm Dragon approaches the school. Drips of black ooze fall from it's body as they materialize into Grimm. It's mere appearance drew concern, fear and worry the longer it's there.

People saw it and began running in fright, attracting more Grimm to them. Fighters and Hunters were on the ground as they dealt with the waves of monsters. The regular people had nowhere to go but 6 feet under.

Penny widened her eyes abject fear she didn't know she had as she rearranged her blades on her back. She then jumped out of the hanger causing others to scream in terror. They stopped when they saw her _flying_ with her weapons in the shape of wings on her dress. The gynoid proceeded activated her semblance and began going faster as she engaged the beast.

Silence reigned as the Hunters processed what happened in the bullhead. As their ride approached Beacon Nora broke the tension.

"Why does Penny get all the cool stuff!" She said with a hint of jealousy.

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 **Chapter one is now a go. Penny's Gravity semblance does have limits, they just haven't been touched yet. It does fit for her, personality wise. And theoretically, if she was reprogrammed her abilities could change. Hope you enjoy the story, it will deviate from canon quite a bit.**

 **Be advised, aerial combat inbound. First instance writing on that.**

 **Read, review and follow if I'm lucky.**


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